(I didn’t create this meme; I got it from Facebook.)
The last time I discussed a theory like one of those you could generate below, I asked as neutrally as I could for evidence. I was told that “Good people are just now stepping forward.”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Cover of “L’Estampe Moderne,” Alfons Mucha, May 1897
Publishers — Charles Masson & Henri Piazza.
Here’s a really terrific poem about Grendel’s mother.
I happened across a poem about Grendel’s mother last night that I truly like a lot, and I thought I’d link to it from here. It’s at the All Poetry website, and it was written by a gentleman with the user name “Peripatetic.”
Check it out here:
“The Promise-Oath that Grendel’s Mother Made”
Cover to “Doom 2099” #14, Ron Lim and Tom Smith, 1993
Marvel Comics.
“Children afraid of the night/ Who have never been happy or good.”
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play …
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
— excerpts, W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Somebunny almost got stepped on.
These little Roanoke fur-twerps need to be more careful about getting underfoot. We not-quite-middle-aged New Yorkers aren’t used to animals darting about our feet. And we … can’t see quite as well as we used to, either.
“All that a speech can say/ About Democracy”
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
— excerpt, W.H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
“Summer,” Alfons Mucha, 1896
Oil on panel.
Throwback Thursday: the Atari 2600’s “Berzerk!”
“Berzerk” for the Atari 2600 was one of my favorite games in the 1980’s. It wasn’t exactly high-concept … you shot at robots who shot at you, in a series of redundant maze configurations. To mix things up a little, both the robots and the walls were electrified, so you had to make sure your little monochromatic avatar didn’t touch either.
The more difficult levels added another threat — a giant happy face (like the famous 1970’s t-shirt design) named “Evil Otto.” It … sort of bounced through the maze, and was also electrified.
“Berzerk” was an unusual game, too, because you could take a break from it. The game didn’t have a “pause” function; the Atari 2600 was far too rudimentary for that. But if you killed every robot in a room, you could just allow your little guy to stand there before walking him into the next maze. You could get up, go outside and play, call your mother from the landline, or make a peanut butter sandwich on toast (considered a delicacy at the time.)
If you want to play the original “Berzerk,” you can play it for free right here over at Virtual Atari.
Poster for “Requiem for a Dream” (2000)
Artisan Entertainment.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 